


Testing

by B_Radley



Series: Becoming Fulcrum [24]
Category: Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Developing Friendships, Gen, Memories, Pain, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: The operative known as Fulcrum meets her new handler in the very early days of the embryonic Rebellion against the Empire. Snark, stubbornness, and blaster fire ensue,as they find that they have more in common than they think.





	

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A hint of spoiler gleaned from the online, published Kirkus review of the upcoming Ahsoka novel. No major plot points revealed as it has been online for a month or two.
> 
> Also, this work refers to situations and characters from other works of mine. Not necessary to read these works in order to follow this story, but it would make me very happy. :)

**Rodia  
** Year 19 after the Great Resynchronization  
Three Years after the Fall of the Republic 

The Fixer watches the door of the small restaurant. For the fourth time since sitting at the back table, she unconsciously wipes the greasy surface.

She stops herself and grins. _Can't be a Queen's handmaiden here, Vorrserrie._

Not for this meeting.

Nola thinks about her strategy in dealing with this, her new asset. She thinks back to the conversation with her boss, Bail Organa.

_Nola, I have known Fulcrum since she was little more than a child. A child who was already a powerful warrior. She has been through a great deal in her life. You don't have to handle her with kid gloves, but bear in mind she may be difficult to deal with._

Nola smirks at that memory. _She isn't the only one who can be difficult, Bail. I am related to a certain Naberrie._

The door opens. A large male Weequay walks through. Nola relaxes. _Dammit. Didn't anyone tell this super, high speed secret weapon that she should be on time?_

A shadow passes over her. "Would you like to order, now ma'am?" a clear voice asks. She hears fresh ice water tumble into her her glass.

"No, thank you."

"I really think that you should order something, Princess," the voice says with a hint of amusement. "Otherwise people might think that you're up to something."

A pair of orange arms, with white markings on the forearms, places a menu on the table.

Nola starts and moves her hand to her waistband. She relaxes as she looks up at her 'server.' A pair of wise blue eyes - eyes that have been a window to most of the major tragedies of the galaxy in the past few years. Eyes that still possess a hint of youth and laughter through the care.

Eyes that she had last seen staring back at her from a Republic arrest holo in a dossier. Eyes dulled by a clone commander's stun blast, but with still a hint of defiance in the grimy, tired face.

Eyes that are currently looking at her from a large brown and white scarf that conceals most of the owner's face, as well as a few extremely identifying appendages.

"Thanks for the advice, Fulcrum. Nice apron. Don't call me Princess," Nola says.

"Come on, Princess," Fulcrum says. "Let's go somewhere more private. I need a drink."

XXXXX

_More private? A strip club?_

Nola can feel her anger rising at Fulcrum as bright lights flash over her face. She ignores the dancers of various genders and races on the multiple stages as the bass beat of the music assaults her ears and head.

Fulcrum slides into the booth next to her, a pair of drinks in her hands. She looks around and slides closer. She pulls her scarf down and Nola gets a good look at Ahsoka Tano's face for the first time in person.

The bright pulsing lights play over her orange skin. Her white facial markings change colors with the lights.

Nola notices two things about the young operative. She notices that Ahsoka's beautiful face is a mixture of the round face of her youth and the thinner, more pared down visage of her maturity.

 _Still beautiful, though_ , a part of Nola's mind says.

She shakes her head. The thought probably has come into her mind because the second thing that she had noticed. The young Togruta has pulled her face within a few centimeters of Nola's.

Nola calms her anger and looks Ahsoka square in the eye. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Tano?" She finds that she doesn't have to yell, with Fulcrum's face so close. "I didn't come here to make out with you. We have business. Plus I could do without all the naked flesh being waved around."

Fulcrum gives a Smirk that nearly knocks Nola out of her seat. "Well, Princess, to everybody looking at us, it looks like I have my tongue down your throat and that we will either start going at it in the booth or will soon be leaving for me to take you to the moon."

The young Naboo gives her own smirk. "Don't flatter yourself, Fulcrum. As if you could." She takes a sip of her drink, nods approvingly at the aged Corellian whiskey.

"I will say that you have good taste in whiskey," she admits.

The Smirk stays on the operative's face. "Well, Princess, I refuse to buy an umbrella drink."

Nola's eyes flash as she grits her teeth again. _Pretty sure that I am going to wear the enamel off of my teeth if this 'partnership' is going to go anywhere outside of this club._

"Why couldn't we continue this at that restaurant?"

Tano looks at her as if appraising her. "Because I am going to teach you something, Princess. Look around at the crowd. What do you see? Give me three things."

Nola looks around the room. She gives a quick look; she doesn't stare. She doesn't see Fulcrum smile slightly and nod with approval.

"Well, everybody's attention is on the stage. Gives us some privacy. The music and lights allow us to carry on a conversation, especially," she gives an arch look, "since you have your tongue in my ear."

"What else, Princess?"

Nola inhales. Releases it. She looks around, but her eyes looked perplexed. "I don't know. Because you like to look at copious amounts of naked flesh?"

"That's a perk, not a requirement," Fulcrum says. "Look at the clientele. What do you see?"

"Okay. I'm getting tired of playing this fucking game, 'Sweetums," Nola says, a hard look coming into her eyes.

An even harder look flows into Ahsoka's blue eyes. "If I am going to put my survival into your hands, darling, I want to make sure you know what the hell you're doing. Look at the audience."

Nola scans the audience quickly. "Well, everybody seems to be in professional or business attire. So? I'm dressed casually."

Ahsoka looks at her evenly. "Exactly, Nola," she says, using her name for the first time. "You are dressed casually. But the way that you carry yourself, you look like you are dressed in a business suit and heels. You fit in perfectly here in this particular club."

She takes a sip of her drink. "That greasy spoon that we were at? You didn't fit in there. I watched you wiping the table down. It's why I was late contacting you. I was serving other tables and watching you watch the door."

Nola looks down. Ahsoka can see the emotions playing on the teenaged fixer's face. "So you watched me. You were testing me?"

"I've been testing you the entire time, babe." Ahsoka says softly. "The reasons that you gave were sound, but not the main reason. I chose a strip club because I knew that you would be uncomfortable and off-balance. A Naboo queen's handmaiden," at this, a pained look crosses Nola's face, "would never have found herself in a place like this, much less a construction contractor's daughter."

"So, I guess that I failed?"

For the first time, Ahsoka's smile has no snark or hardness to it. "I would give you a low passing score. A failure would've been you getting up and leaving - so uncomfortable that you couldn't stay here. You showed me a lot of guts, even being here after what you have been through."

They both are silent and look into their drinks. Remembering the past. For Nola, her pain invokes the vision of a teenager in the full regalia of a Naboo Queen lying on the ground, her eyes open and staring below a hole in her forehead. A Queen surrounded by Imperial troops.

Imperial troops of the 501st. The Legion that started life with a young Togruta commander and a slightly older human Jedi general.

Nola doesn't surrender to Ahsoka's assessment, though. She looks at Ahsoka, her brown eyes gazing into the Togruta's blue. "Point taken. But I think I have the right to say something about you, too, Fulcrum."

Ahsoka is silent. "I have heard about some of your exploits, already, darling. Your little set-to with the Empire on that farming moon, right after Order 66. Or your posting shit about lightsabers on the Darknet and playing around with pirates after that. Some of the little errands you've already done for the group. If my safety depends on you, as well as our benefactor's, then I have the right to talk to you about recklessness."

She pauses. Ahsoka's expression is unreadable. The fixer takes a drink, gathering her courage to continue. "I know that you are well-trained and highly skilled; that what you do is dangerous as hell. But if I am going to be your contact, I need to know that there will be a certain amount of trust that you won't spend yourself needlessly. I have already lost my Queen and other handmaidens - my friends - to the Empire. My kinswoman and Senator is gone."

She curses silently as she realizes that her eyes are tearing. The liquid spills on her cheeks.

Through the liquid, she sees that Ahsoka's eyes gaze at her with sympathy. The Togruta moves closer and wipes the tears from Nola's cheeks with the back of her hand.

"You bear no blame for Queen Apailana's death, Nola. If you hadn't done what she said and left, you wouldn't be here to be a colossal pain in my ass."

Nola snorts.

"I know a little about running, sweetie. I was hiding on Raada. I was running when I posted on the Darknet - might've been hoping to die then." Nola's eyes close at that. "I might still be running."

She smiles at Nola. "Maybe we can run together, Nola Vorrserrie."

Nola smiles. "Okay. But stop fucking calling me Princess."

For the first time, Ahsoka's laughter rings through the loud music and throbbing bass line into her ear.

The fixer decides that it is a musical sound.

They both finish their drinks and stand. Tano pulls her close. She whispers in Nola's ear. "Might as well keep up the pretense that I am about to take you somewhere and kriff your brains out."

Without warning, she sticks her tongue in the Naboo's ear. A loud spate of giggling emanates from the Fixer as Fulcrum puts her arm through Nola's.

Both of them are laughing as they exit the classy establishment.

XXXXX

_Of course, it doesn't last._

_Dammit, she is the most stubborn woman I have ever met._

"I don't want this shiny new cargo ship. I need something nondescript and with some punch to it if I need to fight my way out of something," the ex-Jedi says.

Nola's face has a thunderous expression on it. They stand just inside a warehouse. A warehouse leased, through several subsidiary companies, by a certain sympathetic Corellian concern.

They are inspecting a diamond-shaped freighter. The paint job on the reconditioned VCX-100 is barely dry.

"This bauble, while a wonderful, fast ship needs a crew. I don't have time to find and vet a bunch of gunners and co-pilots. I need something with just me and an astromech that I pick out."

She smiles. "Something like that one over there."

Nola follows her long finger over to a collection of beat-up relics.

_Of course she would choose that one._

A Y-Wing long range bomber. Introduced at the beginning of the War. A successful fighter-bomber, in which a certain smart-assed Togruta Padawan had made her mark - both as a gunner in the rear turret and as a pilot leading her clones to cover the invasion of a beleaguered Ryloth.

This one has certainly seen better days. It is resting on hardstands rather than its landing gear. The turret cover is hanging by several wires. The faded paint shows some shade of gold. No weapons are in the emplacements. Most of the the engine and fuselage panels are gone.

The bomber looks forlorn in the corner of the hangar. Ahsoka's face is enthralled. Her lekku flex with joy and memory. Nola's face softens as she sees the emotions playing over the young woman's orange face.

But she still has to try.

"That is a piece of crap, Tano. We'll never get that thing going."

"Needs a little work."

"It needs a fucking miracle."

Tano turns to her with her eyes narrowed. "Oh, yeah, Nola. Everybody tells me you are this great fucking fixer. Well, fix it."

They stare at one another. For a good two minutes.

Nola breaks the stare. She throws up her elegant hands. "Okay. You win. Never let it be said that I don't try to make my operative happy."

Tano's look of gratitude is overpowering. Nola smiles. "We'll get it fixed up, Ahsoka. Now for an astromech. Bail has found several new models for you. Come on over here."

_Of course it can't be that easy._

XXXXX

The two young women walk away from the warehouse arm-in-arm. In spite of their mutual snark and stubbornness in choosing ships and droids, their conversation is light and filled with laughter, as they find common ground.

Nola feels Ahsoka tense in mid-snark. She stops, as if receiving a message. She holds her finger up to her lips. She listens and points down an alley.

They walk down the alley and maneuver around to Ahsoka's lodging. As they come out of the alley, they spot four large uglies looking towards the street that they had been traveling down.

They look at one another. They both split away from one another, taking up positions on the opposite flanks Nola draws a small blaster from the back of her waist. She holds it down by her leg; turns away from the uglies. She nods at Tano.

"Looking for a little action, boys?" Ahsoka says. The four thugs whirl. A much smaller being, a female Rodian walks out.

"Hello, sweetie," she says to Ahsoka.

Ahsoka rolls her eyes. "Hello, Neesa."

Nola raises her eyebrow. "Friends of yours? I didn't think you had any friends."

"Nice, Princess."

"Listen girlie," the Rodian says, "enough with the chit-chat. You and your little Mando friends put some serious hurting on my profits. I think that either you will take the place of my 'assets' that you stole, or I will have a beautiful Togruta skin on my wall. Which will it be? I personally would love to see you entertaining Jabba's guests on your knees, on his sail barge, but I am good either way."

"How about neither?"

Ahsoka is about to continue, when a blaster bolt slams into the chest of one of the thugs who had raised his blaster at Ahsoka's side.

Nola stands there, her blaster smoking. Ahsoka's eyes are wide.

No one moves for a moment. The thugs, reduced in number, charge the two women. A Weequay goes down to a second blaster bolt fired from the Naboo.

The other two thugs, a human and another Rodian open on Ahsoka. A meter long shaft of green energy intersects both bolts.

And sends them back to the sources. Both thugs fall. Ahsoka's blade disappears within a breath.

Witnesses probably wouldn't have been able to attest to the fact that a proscribed weapon was used.

It is Nola's turn for her eyes to widen. She starts as she sees Ahsoka go rigid. The Togruta turns around as a blaster bolt comes from the darkness behind her.

As she turns, she draws a blaster from a shoulder holster hidden under her battered, brown leather jacket with her left hand and fires. A cry comes from the darkness.

Nola starts toward Ahsoka as the Rodian woman, Neesa swings at her with a large vibroknife. Ahsoka is able to side step, as the knife slides along her back.

The Togruta follows through from the cut with a grunt of pain. Her booted foot intersects with the Rodian's face. The slaver goes down like a collapsed balloon.

As Nola reaches Ahsoka, she sees the young woman grimace with pain. She holds her back. The hand comes away with blood.

"Fulcrum! You're hurt," Nola says.

"No shit," Ahsoka replies with a gasp. She looks at the Fixer. "So are you, Princess."

Nola looks down at her side. A smoking, slightly oozing mark shows through a hole in her shirt.

Her vision blurs for a moment. She staggers. Ahsoka grabs her arm. "Come on, sweetie. Let's get to your place. Mine probably has a few more of these assholes waiting for me."

XXXXX

The two women stumble into the room. Ahsoka lowers Nola to the bed. Without a word, she strips off the fixer's shirt. She reaches into a small pouch on her belt and unfolds a single bacta pad. With one hand, she holds Nola's.

"This may sting, Nola."

"Do it." Ahsoka is efficient in cleaning and bandaging the wound. Nola lays back for a moment and closes her eyes.

She realizes that Ahsoka is not in the room. She hears gasps coming from the 'fresher. She pulls her top on and walks in. Ahsoka is facing the door, her back to the mirror as she uses a towel to staunch the flow of blood.

Nola puts her hands on the warrior's shoulder. Ahsoka's head whips back around. Nola turns her around.

"Where is another bacta pad, Tano?"

"That was the only one I had. Didn't have a chance to replenish from the last time I got punctured in some way."

"Dammit, Tano, you stubborn bitch, why did you use it on me? Mine was cauterized."

"Seemed like the thing to do at the time," Ahsoka says, gritting her teeth.

"It doesn't seem too deep. Looks like it went through some fat," Nola says.

"What the hell do you mean, fat? I don't have any fat," the warrior says.

"Vanity much? Tell you what. There was an all-night apothecary that we passed. I can run out."

Ahsoka closes her eyes. She slumps. "Are you sure? You were pretty shaky after you got hit."

"It was just my first blaster wound," she admits.

Ahsoka takes her hand in her own. "If I have anything to say about it, it'll be your last." She smiles. "You were pretty sharp out there, Princess. I didn't expect you to shoot first. I'm impressed."

"Impressed enough to stop calling me 'Princess'?"

"Maybe."

XXXXX

An hour later and both of them are lying in sleepwear, wounds cleaned, and showered. Their bellies are full, courtesy of the credits that a certain Togruta had lifted from the belt pouch of a certain slaver after punching her into submission.

"Never pass up a chance for a scumbag to contribute to the cause," she had said to Nola's raised eyebrow.

"So what was that all about?" Nola asks.

Ahsoka is silent. Finally, she looks at the fixer and responds, "Side gig. I have some anonymous friends who are fighting to free slaves, as well as any clones who are deserting the Empire"

Nola's eyes light with recognition. "The _Vod'e An_ movement? I've heard rumors. Didn't know my primary operative was involved," she finishes with a hint of exasperation.

"What I do with my off-time is none of yours or Bail's goddamned business," Ahsoka says angrily.

Her eyes sink to the floor. "This is important to you, isn't it, babe?" Nola asks, gently.

After a second, Ahsoka nods. "Yes. I owe it to my brothers. The ones who died. Even the ones that tried to kill me. They were my family."

Nola touches her cheek. "Hey. It's okay. I understand."

She gives her operative time. After a time, Ahsoka looks at her and nods.

Nola changes the subject. "That was incredible lightsaber work. I've seen a few in my time..."

It is her turn to grow wistful as memories well. She shakes her head. "Is that your lightsaber? I thought the Republic took them."

Ahsoka smiles. "No. You're right. I gave my original pair up when I left the Order." Her expression sobers. "I have my own, again, but trying to stay low profile right now, I either just use my blasters, or some 'rescued' sabers that I have."

Nola nods. "Bail told me about that. Saving other Jedi's legacy. I think that it was the most powerful statement about you that pushed me over the edge to take you on."

Ahsoka Smirks. "Oh, really? I thought it was my good looks and charming personality."

Nola rolls her eyes. "Yeah, that was it. Hey, make sure that you are careful with those slavers. I don't think you would make a great stripper at Jabba's place." Neither of them mention the worse fates outlined for her. Even the ones that didn't involve her death.

"How do you know I don't already have experience?"

Their laughter rolls through the night, as the operative has the last word while the Naboo chokes on her water.

XXXXX

Nola awakens to a noise from the young woman lying next to her. They had argued about who would be more self-sacrificing and take the floor. They had finally come to the conclusion that both could sleep in the double bed without compromising their propensity for such unselfish stupidity.

She looks down at Ahsoka in the dim light. The young woman's head moves from side to side. Her face is soaked in sweat and she has kicked the covers off of her.

Nola listens to the words coming from Fulcrum's mouth. Some appear to be names. Her eyes well, as she hears one in particular.

" _Padme_."

Nola's distant cousin. The woman who had started her on a life of service.

She wipes the tears and continues to listen to the young woman's words.

They change from name to phrases. A series in particular rips her heart again.

_I didn't kill them. I am loyal to the Jedi. Please, Master, don't let them execute me._

A slight scream issues from her mouth. A scream that is just as suddenly cut off.

Ahsoka's breathing slows. Her murmurs revert to names again.

_Anakin. Plo. Shaak Ti. Barriss._

The last said with a tone of betrayal and pain.

The next name she says, is one said with tears flowing from her eyes....

And a bittersweet smile.

 _Taliesin_.

Nola takes the young woman in her arms and lays with the Togruta's head on her chest.

She smiles. She thinks of a sarcastic young Corellian Jedi, standing in a Separatist cell, telling her how he mourned his troops. She starts her own Remembrance, silently. A Remembrance that the bearer of that name had taught her.

The fixer and her new warrior sleep.

They rest, until the fight starts again.


End file.
